Original title: The house that Jack Built · Lars von Trier · Dinamarca · 2018 · Script: Lars von Trier · Performers: Matt Dillon, Bruno Ganz, Uma Thurman…
Original title: The old man and the gun · David Lowery · Dinamarca · 2018 · Script: David Lowery, David Grann · Interpreters: Robert Redford, Sissy Spacek, Casey Affleck…
Approaching each new proposal by Danish director Lars Von Trier is, definitely, a risky exercise, for both the critic and any viewer. His cinema does not leave indifferent. He doesn't intend it. And if he doesn't do it, it's not because of an masturbatory desire to attract attention., as has been said on so many occasions. It's his way of understanding cinema. The art, in general. In Five conditions, his documentary co-directed with his compatriot, the also director, Jorgen Leth (although we could discuss this, Who is the real “author” of that movie??), Trier left well established the foundations that inspire his way of conceiving his work. For the person responsible for titles such as Europao Melancholia, The good filmmaker should not be satisfied with making an aesthetically stimulating work., bella, original. What Trier asked his partner in that exercise in which he proposed that he make various variations on one of his short films, the thing is, so to speak, “it will stain your hands”. That is: get your hands dirty, get intimately involved with what you are doing and, with that, involve the public. And, along the way, you managed to annoy that audience, even to the point of insulting him in such a way as to establish a conflictive relationship with the author., so that path was correct. The rest was avoiding the true responsibility of the director: provoke, make you think, shake, go where no one wants to go, although it bothers
And if, Jack's house It is a radically disturbing film.. Jack, the man mentioned in the title, looks like any guy. Behind that appearance of normality lies, however, the mind of an unscrupulous killer, a psychopath. Divided into five chapters, The film crudely recounts some of his many crimes. in them, even at the risk of being caught by the police, Jack goes further and further, all in order to try to extinguish the impulse that stirs inside. While we witness these gruesome events, Jack seems to discuss his reflections with someone who is not shown to us.. What motivates you, how did it get there, how to explain something, for Jack, It's not just killing for the sake of killing, It is much more, it is a work of art.
To say that behind the mind of Lars Von Trier hides the imagination of a macabre man with a dark (and hilarious) sense of humor, it's not something new. Since his first feature film, The element of crime, going through his television adventures in series such as the very delirious The kingdom, or movies like Nymphomaniaco Antichrist,Trier has shown that it does not stop at any dam. Always one step further, as its main character, The Dane boasts of putting the viewer in compromising situations, not only aesthetically, but from a dramatic point of view and, even, moral. Trier has no qualms when it comes to attacking the most placid corners of the right-thinking minds of contemporary man. Possessor of sharp and well-developed grammar after years of practice, here he likes again to move his audience wherever he wants, manipulating your expectations at will, measuring the duration of each sequence up to that exact point where things are one step away from breaking. It will be at that moment when I give you what, without knowing it, want or, better, making me want, without knowing it, the arrival of the cruel outcome, even to release it (momentarily) of the weight that has forced him to carry. It's not so much what you see, like what you sense is going to happen (and?, in the end, happens). Trier alone, So, the viewer to a feat of strength with himself and with his ability to withstand the toughest tests of resistance. But these tests, we say, They do not only refer to the stark situations that the story raises. (unfit, in many cases, for delicate sensibilities), They also affect our ability to endure what challenges our concept of what is acceptable.. Trier puts us in front of a mirror and examines us like an x-ray and frees us, taking out, thanks to the weapons of humor, our most perverse and morbid side, dropping, with that, all the supposed conventions, ethics and policies, that constrain and define our society. Disturbing message email, himself, like Jack, He offers himself as a sacrifice to the pyre of judgment and public opinion. That's the price you have to pay.
Play in your favor, in this case, a protagonist character who demands the complicity of the public. Impossible not to identify with Jack, superbly played by Matt Dillon who gives us a range of small gestural details that are simply unfathomable for a first screening of the film.. Dillon literally blends into the character. And we are not referring to his many tics, but to that look that marks Jack's double nature, the deep irony, the sarcasm that permeates every gesture, every decision, the deep self-knowledge of a character who evolves from a few first and hesitant steps to full awareness of his task. Each act is one more step towards the completion of a work of art (the house of the title), which is nothing more than a provocation that shoots us to the most intimate part of our brain. Lars Von Trier stands here as an icon of the remains of a once incisive pop culture, provocative, today a mere shadow of what was, asleep, accommodating, in the lullaby of the hisses of political correctness.
But what the author of dance in the dark es, above all, of art. Y, specifically, of the creation process. As we said at the beginning of this chronicle, there is no art if the artist does not stain his hands. Trier puts us in the mind of a psychopath to take us, So, to the mind of the author, your own mind. Like Jack, The artist's work moves between intuition and inspiration (y, why not say it, luck, the chance of that unexpected discovery, simmering in your head) until, based on a trial and error exercise, of constant construction and destruction, reach the true definitive form of the artistic piece. In the process, the artist plays with materials, in this case, the human body and mind, until you find the path that will take you to the final epiphany, to that which reveals, already consistently, corporeal, the speech that he carries inside and that cries out to come out. Are we talking about fiction, of an essay or both at the same time? who knows, every option is valid, in this case.
But the message hidden in this work is not available to everyone.. Trier speaks to a specific spectator, to his spectator, the one who has accompanied him throughout the years in his already extensive artistic journey. He surrenders to him and offers his own soul in a beautiful final sacrifice.. The survival of the work depends on their complicity.. Both, author and viewer remain, So, linked. Treir gives him those beautiful final prints whose description we will spare ourselves.. Lars has done it again.
In another vein, with other codes, The latest work by American director David Lowery comes to our screens, The old man and the gun. Once, A film like this would have undoubtedly topped the list of the biggest titles on the billboard at the time.. The drift through which the dalliances of contemporary mass cinema walk, however, They have barely relegated it to small rooms with minor promotion. Only the presence and the announcement of the definitive retirement of Robert Redford, protagonist of this work, from movie sets, have achieved greater public attention. That's how things are.
Based on the story of the real Forrest Tucker, The old and the gun tells the latest adventures of a septuagenarian bank robber who refuses to retire. Bearer of a truly friendly character and smile, Tucker manages to take the money from the till without using violence, seducing his victims. This sympathy prevents him from being identified by law enforcement., at least, until Detective John Hurt decides to take the matter seriously. While, Tucker conoce a Jewel, a widow who lives retired on a ranch. Jewel seems like Tucker's last chance to finally settle down and achieve the desired rest from a life full of adventures.. But nothing is that easy.
Con The old and the gun, We meet again with one of the most interesting directors that contemporary North American cinema has produced.. Lowery knows how to choose his projects and, the most important thing, knows how to imbue all of them with a personal stamp, direct them, channel them, definitely, towards those creative spaces that interest you and agree with your conception of cinema. As already demonstrated in the magnificent In one place without law, Lowely is a director who has his eye on the long tradition of cinema in his country. genre cinema (western, noir) but with a consistent human touch. It depends on who, fundamentally, in the construction of very solid characters. Author of the script of his films, Lowely focuses on their psychological construction on a plot that, in many cases, is conditioned by your personality. Lowely thus displays a range of characters, each one more emotional and seductive.. It is true that there seems to exist a certain mimesis between the Tucker protagonist of the film and the actor Robert Redford whom the director (or himself as a producer) pays him a heartfelt farewell tribute. Tucker seems to be a sort of compendium of many of the characters Redford has played throughout his career.: kindly, next, quiet, charming. But we would be unfair if we left out of this account the work carried out by Sissy Spacek, in the role of Jewel, or a Casey Affleck who hits the nail on the head again here. Afleck, Lowely's regular collaborator, build a character of broad nuances, reflection of the emotions that involve a spectator who cannot help but be moved by the story of the misadventures of this old thief at the twilight of his career and his life..
But if Lowely's cinema stands out for something, it is curiously because of his love for silences.. Since the mentioned In one place without law, passing through the wonderful A gost story, and even for the underrated and very attractive version he made of Peter and the Dragon, Lowely's cinema moves in the intricacies of that which is not said, but that is felt behind the words and gestures of its characters. Lowery wants to tell things with the camera and that is why he renounces using dialogue as the driving force of the story.. Their characters are not explained, They only let little touches of what animates them inside fall here and there.. It will be your gestures, Its decisions that complete the final image. And enduring all this, a camera that knows, like few, how to liven up a party with elegance and mastery, without fanfare, with frank serenity, but without losing the right pulse at any time. What stands out in this case is the fluidity with which Lowely knows how to move from one scenario to another in the moments in which events accumulate.. Its lateral movements give consistency and vigor to sequences that, otherwise, they would have been very dull. No less notable is the chase sequence. You don't need many shots to give rhythm to a moment that, according to the character of your character, flee from all bottomless fuss. A tribute to Kubrick, simply delicious.
With these elements David Lowery has built a vitalist story that tells us about freedom, of the need to fulfill our desires above conventions. That is the strength of this story. And who has not dreamed of a life free of ties and commitments?? Well that. Cinema that is enjoyed without unnecessary excesses and leaves us with a smile when leaving the theater. Who gives more? GERARDO LEON
